Neighborhood fighting back to save pool

BATON ROUGE - With the pool at Gus Young Park set for demolition in August, some supporters are pushing back and looking for a way to keep the pool open.

The pool has been closed the past few summers as the price to maintain the 50-year-old pool became too costly for BREC. However, the pool means more than just a place to cool off for people in the Gus Young area.

"This area is so infested with crime, so much killing and other things going on," said Tremaine Paul. "That pool and this park was like a safe haven. It kept a lot of kids out of trouble you know."

Supporters of the pool like Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle say it's now up to the community to save the pool. Marcelle says she's working with others to design and build a new pool at the park. She says they would need to raise enough money to build the pool and would then ask BREC to maintain it.

However, BREC feels spending nearly $100,000 to staff and maintain the pool doesn't make sense when it can build a splash pad instead. BREC says people in the Gus Young neighborhood can travel less than two miles to swim at the A.C. Lewis YMCA or Howell Park.

BREC will discuss the Gus Young pool at its next committee meeting at 4 p.m. on July 15 at BREC headquarters on Florida Boulevard.